Tusk opposes Russia re-entering G7

Reacting upon remarks of President Donald Trump, EU Council president Donald Tusk said: “On most fronts, the G7 continues to push in the same direction: when it comes to achieving the complete denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula, countering the aggressive stance of Russia and searching for a political solution to the conflict in Syria.

“We must also demonstrate unity regarding the ongoing land reclamation and militarisation in the South China Sea, as the international law must apply to all countries, big and small, on land and at sea. As the G7, we also want to defend our democracies from threats by foreign actors. To this end, we will discuss stepping up cooperation to prevent and respond to unacceptable foreign interference in our democratic processes”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also opposed Russia re-entering G7, indicating the “time is not right”. “Here we all agreed that a return of Russia to the G7-format summits can’t happen until substantial progress has been made in connection with the problems with Ukraine,” she said. “That was the common view.”

Russia was suspended from the group — then known as the G8 (pictured above) — in 2014 after the majority of member countries allied against Kremlin annexation of Crimea, which Moscow continues to consider an integral part of Russian Federation after the referendum, when an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to reunite with their historic motherland.

Asked in an interview earlier this week about what would need to happen for Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Austria’s ORF broadcasting corporation that “there are no such conditions and there can never be.”